Our Philosophy & Principles

Our Philosophy

The Jackman ICS mission is excellence in childhood education, teacher education, and research in a culturally and economically diverse environment.

We are a community of parents and teachers who work in partnership to support and enhance the learning of each student. Our program and teaching reflect our belief that students have different needs at different developmental stages. Our approach is both rigorous and flexible, encouraging the construction of knowledge by teaching students to formulate questions, analyze, and solve problems.

We are committed to helping each student master important subject matter, learn to think critically, creatively, and with empathy, and understand and appreciate the values and traditions in our school community and in broader society, and develop a diverse sense of personal and social responsibility. Every student is viewed as an individual, unique in her/his combination of developmental readiness, culture, lifestyle, learning approaches, temperament, and special talents.

"Your young persons are thinking well, building up knowledge, while enjoying themselves and also childhood, in the best, fullest sense of the term."

Howard Gardner

Harvard School of Graduate Studies

Jackman ICS provides an environment that fosters research and professional inquiry. The School makes a significant contribution to the education, human development, and applied psychology work within our University and in the wider educational community in Canada and internationally.

The Lab School also serves a role in preparing pre-service teachers for their professional life through its contributions to the Jackman ICS Master of Arts in Child Study and Education program, providing both practicum experience, mentoring and course instruction by our teaching staff.

Our Principles

Whole Child

We engage the whole child, believing that each learner is an individual who brings body, mind, emotions, relationships and experiences to learning

We believe that all learners deserve time to learn deeply, reflect on their learning, and make meaningful connections.

Time

Joy

We believe that learning should be a joyful process.

We believe that learning is a rigorous process of inquiry, driven by curiosity, discourse, assessment and reflection, in pursuit of idea improvement and purposeful innovation.

Inquiry

Security

We create a secure environment that allows self-expression, exploration, investigation, creativity and an appreciation of multiple perspectives to flourish.

We value a diverse, deeply interconnected community in which all members feel known, respected, and supported as active participants.

Community

Dissemination

We commit to an ongoing dialogue with the wider educational community of our learning, practices and beliefs.

Embracing Diversity

To us, growing and learning among individuals who share widely divergent life stories, and appreciating their respective cultures, is an invaluable aspect of a true education.

At the Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study Lab School, we celebrate our differences as well as our similarities. The idea that each individual brings a unique and valuable dimension to our shared experience drives the relationships in our community.

We nurture a respectful and inclusive school culture.That means paying close attention to individual experiences, our curriculum, admission work, and our daily lives at the Lab School.

We partner with familiesto help children broaden their view of themselves and others by ensuring that they encounter mirrors of their own background and experience, as well as windows of difference.

We teach, practice, and appreciate open-mindedness and awareness, explicitly developing respect for many aspects of diversity, including race or ethnicity, socioeconomic situations, religion, gender, national origin, family composition, sexual orientation, physical/health or psychological difference, and political affiliation.

We encourage our students to be active citizens, questioning and countering various forms of prejudice.

We teach and practice idea diversity.We enable students to experience, understand, and support the notion that idea diversity is essential to the development of knowledge advancement, just as biodiversity is essential to the success of an ecosystem. To understand an idea is to understand the ideas that surround it, including those that stand in contrast to it. Idea diversity creates a rich environment for ideas to evolve into new and more refined forms. Read more principles here.